The tragic and sudden passing of a global sporting icon, Kobe Bryant, had me thinking of another hero closer to home.
Axel Foley had a massive impact on my career at a couple of different stages. When I was 18, he brought me to London for an 'A' game after we had won the under-20 All Ireland Cup with UCC.
A great experience well and truly outside the norm for me that was summed up by parking my parent’s Toyota Corolla in a housing estate across the road from the University of Limerick instead of parking by the dressing rooms like everyone else.
He gave Colm Coakley, our physio, instructions to ensure my shoulders were rehabbed properly because he wanted to get me right.
"Not having the courage to say thanks to a man that I looked up to still lives with me."
Fast forward a couple of years to signing a new contract in the middle of a long-term injury. Axel was the head man when I picked up my injury and gave me another chance in the senior group with a start against Zebre at home, something that was nothing out of the ordinary, but he followed it up with a controversial starting position against a fully loaded Leinster side at the business end of the season when our backs were to the wall.
Despite losing the match it’s still up there as my favourite day in a rugby jersey.
It confirmed to me that I belonged where I was trying to get to and it gave my family and friends a day out that they’d never forget.
Axel put himself in a vulnerable position selecting an inexperienced out-half that day against an opposition that were being led by Johnny Sexton, who was on the path to becoming the best player in the world.
He was never a man to share too much emotion unless it was speaking passionately about a province that he grew up in and lead through many European victories.
His faith in me was something that I didn’t understand until I thought about it years after. He didn’t back me with words and hype, he showed me through actions of selecting me and having the confidence in me that I could do a job for him when he needed it most.
Much like Kobe Bryant, Axel started and finished his career with the team he grew up supporting. Loyalty and commitment to a team he not only adored and he was the captain of the first Munster team to break the European deadlock. Kobe Bryant succeeded his father Joe in the NBA in similar fashion to Axel being capped by Ireland 62 times after his father Brendan had been an Irish international before him.
It might sound ridiculous to compare a world renowned NBA superstar to our own rugby star and Munster hero but there are similarities between the sudden passing of both sporting icons.
It was a Sunday afternoon in Newcastle after a couple of heavy nights with some friends when I heard the news of Axel’s passing. Rory Scannell was still a youngster in the squad but was given the job of calling a few players to let them know of the awful news given his own rise in importance and leadership within the Munster squad.
It didn’t actually sink in for a few days, in fact it took even longer because I hadn’t been seeing Axel every day anymore, the fact that he had gone didn’t change my day-to-day life because rugby in Limerick wasn’t part of it at that stage.
However, his sudden passing put everything in perspective for me. Retiring wasn’t easy but it’s something that I tried to deal with in a positive manner. I tried to remind myself that others go through much tougher times in life and if I didn’t remember that, my mother would remind me that rugby wasn’t all rosy either and it was something I appreciated, I still do.
I was given opportunities that others were never given and I always thought to myself that life hadn’t been that bad to me, I hadn’t lost anyone. Well, now I did and so did the rest of the wider rugby community.
I’m sure there are people out there this week that will regret not saying things that they really meant to Kobe Bryant. I’m also pretty sure that there are people out there that don’t share their feelings half enough with the people that mean something to them.
When I retired I asked players and staff to sign a jersey for me so I would remember the group for as long as I could. I never approached Axel to sign it. I was still like a young fella that needed a push to get the signature from a guy that I looked up to, much like the years in the old Musgrave Park where myself and my brother would get new signatures on a piece of paper or a programme even though we had them from the week before.
My jersey is still missing a vital name of a guy who had a massive impact on my career.
That signature is certainly something that I can live without. More upsetting is the realisation Axel Foley is a person that I never got to share my thanks and gratitude with, at least not face-to-face.
Despite that becoming a bit of a mantra for me through my injury recovery, I still didn’t get to Axel in time for him to hear it and it’s something that I’m reminded of regularly.
I try not to live my life with regret in any situation because they are our decisions at the time and we made them for a reason within a certain context, but not having the courage to say thanks to a man that I looked up to still lives with me.
Life is about perspective. Sport is a career and everyone changes career. People are much more important and unfortunately we need to be reminded about that from time to time, but it’s worth remembering.
